Russian 'murdered five in home-made electric chair'
Pastor Dale Morgan
Russian 'murdered five in home-made electric chair'*
A serial killer obsessed with electricity murdered at least five people
in a series of lurid experiments to test his home-made electric chair,
Russian police said on Friday.
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 10:52PM BST 29 May 2009
The 30-year-old electrician, identified only as Dmitry K, lured victims
to his house by posting adverts for computer equipment on the internet.
Police in Yekaterinburg, a city in Russia's Urals region, tracked the
suspect down after finding the charred body of a law student in a
roadside ditch.
Dmitry K admitted murdering the student, investigators said, before
claiming that he had also killed several other victims as he conducted
experiments on an improvised electric chair that he had invented.
The suspect, who worked at a local power plant, told detectives he would
confess to the other murders if they found the bodies.
Police say they are investigating at least four other incidents in which
Yekaterinburg residents went missing after responding to internet
adverts for computer supplies over the past 12 months.
"There is reason to believe that the number of victims is higher,"
Vladimir Davydov, a senior detective in the Yekaterinburg police force,
told reporters.
The dead student, named only as Anton A, was the first victim of the
killer's research and was murdered in a correspondingly rudimentary way.
After persuading the student to come into his garage, Dmitry K
overpowered his victim and then wrapped his body with copper wire
connected to a generator. The suspect told police he hit a button on his
computer which triggered a surge of current through the student's body,
killing him almost instantly.
As he honed his technique, Dmitry K then fashioned an improvised
electric chair which he used to practice on subsequent victims.
According to police, the suspect also claimed to have designed a doormat
that would electrocute anyone who stood on it, but had yet to test it.
He also asked detectives to return a camera he had invented which used
an electro-magnetic ray to erase the memory of anyone he photographed
with it.
Russia has established a reputation for bizarre serial killings. In
2007, Alexander Pichushkin, placed coins on a chessboard to keep track
of the number of victims he had murdered. He is believed to have killed
as many as 61 people, according to detectives.
Andrei Chikatilo, known as the Red Ripper, was executed in 1994 after
being convicted of murdering and "sexually cannibalising" 52 women and
children.